MOMENTUM CON - Featuring Defining Non-Monogamy: Bridging the Gap in the Community

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Polyamory Leaders Meet for Third Summit Meeting

At long last I've written up a report on the Polyamory Leadership Network's summit held in February.  The Network (hereafter referred to as “PLN”) held its third summit February 21-22, 2010 in the Philadelphia area. Thirty-five leaders from across the U.S. attended, and the summit was facilitated by workshop facilitator and sex educator Reid Mihalko.

PLN is a loosely-formed group of community leaders formed in October, 2008 at the 2008 Poly Pride Celebration in New York City. Its purpose is to educate the general public about polyamory as a legal, natural, ethical, practical, and joyous way of life; to provide education and support for members of the polyamory community and others interested in or touched by this relationship choice; and to foster a public climate in which all forms of consensual adult relationship choices are respected and honored. This is achieved through publications, media outreach, creative and scholarly projects, support for local/regional allies, and by providing opportunities and venues for collaboration and information-sharing.

After general introductions, Sarah Taub and I presented a recap of the prior summit held a year earlier. Projects that originated at the 2009 summit were reviewed and include providing more volunteer support and funding for the Loving More Non-Profit; a national coming out project; outreach projects to legal professionals, poly/mono partners, Principle Voices (a pro-religious polygamy organization), therapists, and polyamorists under 35; the formation of the Polyamory Media Association to better manage and leverage opportunities arising from media coverage of polyamory; a poly history timeline; and, of course, research collaboration with CARAS, on which Sarah Taub reported on the CARAS Polyamory Community Study currently in development.

Then we discussed and determined what skills and resources we offer each other. Each person spoke to what they are passionate about, love doing, and are great at, which was recorded and distributed for finding project collaborators that share our passion for a specific project. We all agreed to commit only to what we know how to do, are good at, and love doing.

Next we were asked to report what projects we are doing as individuals, and/or are fired up about doing. These included creating more events to build connections and communities; improving poly community diversity; helping with the CARAS poly community survey; developing and presenting more relationship skills workshops; creating a website that teaches good relationship skills; organizing a poly convention; creating poly leadership resources; organizing events for disseminating information on STIs; researching and writing scholarly articles; expanding offerings of presentations to relevant professional audiences; creating a virtual intentional poly community; co-producing a sex and relationships expo marketed to the general public; creating a "Faces of Polyamory" video; and presenting on polyamory to LGBT youth and at LGBT conferences.

The focus of the wrap-up part of the summit was the next PLN summit, and it was determined that the next PLN summit will be held October 24-25, 2010 in the Seattle area hotel where Loving More’s Poly Living west coast conference will take place the same weekend.

As the meeting closed, everyone reported feeling inspired, excited and having renewed energy for their work on behalf of polyamory and the polyamory community.

Reactions to Salon.com polyamory article

As follow-up to my most recent post about "Whole Lotta Love", this week's article on Salon.com on polyamory, a subscriber issued the following challenge:

"Answer the question please. Come on just answer the question.

Couple A's 55-year old husband lusts after Couble (sic) B's nubile 20-year old daughter.

Is that OK within this whole polygamy? Come on you can't tell me it hasn't happened. What about the children rolling in the hay with the other kids? Or mixing it up some more with the parents and kids? Should be OK right?

Come on answer the question(s)."

I responded that I am not aware of the first scenario happening, and I know the polyamory community very well. It's possible but improbable. As one respondent said,

".... probably not, in my experience, because it would almost certainly make B uncomfortable and likely C as well. But the definite answer will depend on the specific people involved. And if A persists when B does not like it, B can always tell A to walk west until their hair floats."

Also, in reality, a 20 year old is well past the age of consent in any state you can name - that makes it no one else's business but that of the consenting adults involved.

As for the children rolling around in the hay with other kids, this presumes that polyfolk do or speak about things sexual in front of kids that are not age appropriate, that they give permission and encourage sexual activity amongst children, or at the very least, that they are negligent in their parenting by failing to discourage sex at too early an age. Pure hogwash. Poly people are just as responsible as parents as any other parents. There have been no studies that come anywhere close to the conclusion being made here.

Mixing it up sexually between parents and kids? Insulting, quite frankly. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the suspicion or conclusion that polyamorists are more likely to sexually abuse children. If you look at the deplorable statistics on child sex abuse in our society, it is clear that so-called traditional families have no claim to being a safer environment in which to raise children.

Polyamorists on the whole tend to be highly ethical people who only engage in relationships that are egalitarian in nature, where all involved have equal power to set their own boundaries on what is and is not OK in their relationships. Children can't give consent to sex with adults by law.

You really have to wonder what motivates people who go to such extraordinary lengths to sensationalize someone else's private life. It's obvious that sex makes some people uncomfortable, and these people should deal with their own issues instead of casting spurious allegations on people who are doing nothing wrong.

Whole Lotta Love in Salon.com

I am delighted with the article on polyamory published on Salon.com yesterday entitled "Whole Lotta Love". As it happens, I and several other polyamory spokespeople have been working with the journalist who wrote it for several months. (I am quoted in the beginning of the article.) She did a wonderful, even-handed job with it, something we haven't always gotten from the media. In the bad old days, mostly we were sensationalized via the open sexual component of polyamory, which is just one of the aspects of it that bear examination in order to fully understand the concept of polyamory. So to Liz Langley and the folks at Salon.com, I again say a big thank you!

The comments following the article are very interesting. There is a lot of harsh negativity, some more tolerant voices, and then there are the polyfolk who are doing an excellent job of explaining in detail the more subtle but no less vital parts of the polyamory concept that are impossible to convey in an article in soundbites. And then there's the emotional underpinning that I believe is largely responsible for the strongest and more defensive negative reactions. Here is the response I posted.

When polyamory is the subject of a news article, certain assertions are invariably quickly made, i.e. that polyamory is just an excuse for cheating, it's bad for the kids, it's bound to result in the spread of STDs, and so forth. Polyamory as a concept clearly evokes fear in some folks. This is understandable. It scares we polyamorists, too, sometimes, and we want it, so it isn’t difficult to imagine how someone not so inclined might feel if their partner came home one day and said “Honey, I’m interested in polyamory, would you consider giving it a try?”

We are all subject to the fear of loss those words inspire because we’ve all been marinated in the same culture that has told us since we were born that love is scarce and must be hoarded. When you add to that the anthropological fact that possessiveness was once a useful behavior for perpetuating the species, the urge for which still exists in the reptilian part of the brain called the amigdula, no wonder the idea is very unsettling.

What there wasn't room to elaborate about is that though we polyamorists sometimes feel the same fear of loss and so forth, we choose to work through those emotions, be great poly parents, etc. In other words, we work hard to transcend the challenging parts because we know others who have done it, that we can succeed at this and in doing so satsify both the human need to pair bond as well as the human need for sexual variety.

One of the posters expressed resentment at their perception that polyamorists give the impression that they believe they are more highly evolved than monogamists. Over the course of eleven years I've only heard a small number of comments from polyfolk I would consider to rise to the level of snottyness being perceived, so I'm a bit bemused by how often I encounter this accusation from non-polys. Some of it comes from general resentment toward us over what they perceive is our shaking up their seemingly safe monogamous world. I also wonder whether to mono folk it seems that when we talk about what we have to do to deal with our emotions and other challenges of being good at polyamory, we are automatically perceived by some to be raising the bar without their consent in terms of relationship skills required to be competent relationship partners of any sort. I'm definitely going to make further inquiries about this as I'm always looking for better ways to craft our public message so that it resonates and doesn't put people off. Comments on this especially welcome.

Identity Poly-tics

I subscribe to a number of polyamory-themed e-mail lists and have done so for many years now. Recently I read where someone said that though they self-identify as polyamorous, they found the term "polyamorist" to be inappropriate and objected to being referred to as such.

To them the term refers to people who have an agenda and wish to influence others' judgment on the subject. A gay polyamory activist I know also urges care in use of the term, believing it could become a tool with which those who oppose us (largely religious extremists and advocates for traditional marriage) can bludgeon us by using the term derisively. This may well be reasonable advice, however, in my experience, the opposition is entirely proficient in finding something to seize upon and use for their purposes no matter what we do.

If we had a better term to refer to people who are polyamorous I'd gladly use it, but we don't. I've been using the term "polyamorist" to simply refer to myself and others who identify themselves as polyfolk, polyamorous, etc., for years. I use it in writing and in poly relationship skills educational programs. I haven't been keeping track of whether and how often other polys use it, but I know they do. I expressly do not use it with any intent to describe people with a common agenda, the poly movement and such, though I'm engaged in polyamory activism on a regular basis and do use the term when talking about polyamorous people in the context of poly activism.

"Polyamorist" is a natural way to refer to we who are not monogamists. "Monogamist" is a very common term, at least in my observation. One reason I prefer the term "polyamorist" is that in terms of polyamory activism, it simplifies and clarifies communication with those who are not aware of polyamory and have no knowledge of what it means. As far as most folks know, everyone is a monogamist. Hence, the use of "polyamorist" as a simple and practical term of reference.

New Jersey Religious Extremists Target Polyamorists

Well, this is a first to my knowledge, though no surprise. Tomorrow, June 2, 2007, in Mays Landing, New Jersey, a part of the Atlantic City area, a local marriage rally is being held opposing efforts by what religious extremist rhetoric calls "radical fringe groups such as polygamists and polyamorists, together with homosexuals to redefine marriage." Like so many sensationalist press releases issued by religious extremist groups, this announcement seems to only be showing up via Christian "news" sources. The mainstream press almost always ignores them. Still, so far they've not focused their efforts on polyamorists and have stuck with gay bashing. The main sponsor is the New Jersey Family Policy Council.

One thing I find curious is the title of the article: "Coalition Only Invites Citizens Who Disagree with Radical Attempts to Redefine Marriage to Rally this Saturday" It's like they think this will discourage those they wish to bash from attending.

Polyamory activists have made contact with local press and offered up resources for information on polyamory for any coverage they may decide to give this event, which it's not actually likely to get, so we aren't too concerned, but still, it is interesting to find ourselves squarely in the sights of religious extremists. It was bound to happen thanks to the efforts of Stanley Kurtz and his slippery slope message put forth repeatedly over the past few years, especially in his 2003 Weekly Standard article, "Beyond Gay Marriage" and his 2005 National Review article, "Rick Santorum Was Right"

Monogamous Privilege

Sunday I was sitting in my local Unitarian Universalist church listening to our co-minister's excellent sermon entitled, "Solidarity - A Compelling Quandry", during which he spoke at some length on the concept of privilege and how it prevents solidarity. He defined privilege as "unearned and often unconscious advantage that can lead to a sense of entitlement" and added that "some groups benefit from unearned advantages in our cultural system, meaning that their members acquire what’s been called 'an invisible package of assets' [P. McIntosh] without doing anything, per se, to deserve it. These groups might include those with male privilege, white privilege, heterosexual privilege, wealth or class privilege, Christian privilege, ablebodied privilege, etc."

To this list I would add monogamous, or "mono", privilege.

So how does mono privilege impact polyamorists? Alas, contradictory as it may seem to other UUs, I need look no further than my own UU church. Though my primary partner and I have had preliminary discussions with our co-ministers about the subject of polyamory and our desire to feel that our relationship orientation, if you will, is welcomed and supported by our church congregation, there is a lot of work to do in order to educate church leaders and help them overcome their discomfort with the subject. (Fortunately we do have support and help from Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness.)

Considering Unitarian Universalism's strong commitment to social justice, one would think that gaining acceptance and support for polyamorists would be relatively easy. Not so, or usually not so, despite that numerous "show of hands" polls at polyamory conferences have revealed that about one third of polyamorists identify as UU. Yet we are not assured that, like all the mono folks in attendance, we can sit in church with more than one significant other and hold hands without fear of notice. Mono couples, be they opposite sex, same sex, or interracial couples, can do this - but not we polyfolk.

One Sunday during the "sharing of joys and concerns" segment of the service, a married member of our congregation shared the following as her concern. One of her church friends has revealed that they are polyamorous. She finds this to be so troubling that it warranted her sharing it with the entire congregation.

I don't mean to attack Unitarian Universalism but instead mean to use my experience there as an example of just how widespread mono privilege really is. Throughout our larger society, examples of mono privilege are so numerous as to boggle the mind, but here are the big ones:

• Child custody - very risky for poly parents who are at the mercy of family law judges and child welfare agencies who assume without proof that poly families are poor environments for raising children; the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) reports that in one 12 month period it fielded calls for assistance from 600 poly parents facing child custody challenges. Mono couples face no such challenges;
• Marriage laws - For all the same reasons that same-sex couples are also discriminated against, only in this instance polyfolk in relationship with two or more partners are condemned by those who embrace same-sex monogamy;
• Job security - Polyfolk who are out at work have reported, again according to NCSF, having been terminated or denied promotions purely on the grounds of their relationship orientation. No such problem for monofolk.
• Acceptance by friends and family - Polyfolk and their loved ones often meet with condemnation and rejection when coming out as poly to friends and family, while mono couples are congratulated and celebrated upon their engagement, marriage, etc.
• Public displays of affection - polyfolk are often hesitant to exhibit PDAs even when in public with only one partner for fear that someone they know will see them and assume they are cheating on another partner. Monofolk have no such concerns, assuming they are not cheating.
• Zoning laws - Poly families can encounter difficulty in finding housing that permits more than two adults to occupy the same dwelling. No problem for monofolk.

I've certainly enjoyed mono privilege at times in my life - when I was married and before I became a practicing polyamorist. Though now avowedly polyamorous, I sometimes still do benefit from it owing to the form of poly relationship I prefer, i.e. an open primary dyad, (or couple). Evenso, I am committed to working to eliminate mono privilege and every other kind of discimination against polyamorous persons, largely via NCSF, UUPA, and the Institute for 21st Century Relationships (ITCR).

A day in the life ....

So tonight will be a treat. I'm very active in the DC poly community and Chesapeake Polyamory Network ("CPN"). I have wanted for quite a while to do something with the Baltimore poly community, i.e. Baltimore Maryland Polyamory Network ("BMPN"), which has grown very active over the last couple of years. But working in spitting distance from the White House, though convenient at those times I fantasize about spitting on its principal occupant, has otherwise made it difficult for me to get to any of BMPN's gatherings.

Tonight is BMPN's second annual "You Made It" potluck dinner, the "you made it" theme referencing that dishes brought for the potluck are homemade instead of storebought. It's happening near my home in Maryland, so goody goody! This polygirl always loves interacting with polyfolk and meeting new ones. What a great way to start the weekend.

Tim and I have his kids this weekend. And tomorrow I've a movie date with my girlfriend, Cathy.

I love my poly life!

Should polyamorists seek marriage rights?

When the subject of discussion is polyamory activism, some seem to indicate that a desire for marriage equality for polys is a natural primary goal of poly activism, even a no-brainer. I remain opposed to this course of action because the corporate and big government powers that be are unlikely to let it happen. I am speaking in this instance about the well-heeled, congress-in-its-pocket health insurance industry. Unless a very, very rich polyamory activism benefactor comes along, in no way does the polyamory community have the resources to fight the kind of fight we'd have to fight to get the huge morass of a system of marriage laws, privileges and benefits retooled to fit marriages of more than two.

Of course, this is not so as regards same-sex marriage. No rewebbing need take place, merely a lifting of the one man-one woman requirement. There is much less likelihood of a negative financial impact under those circumstances than what would surely be anticipated by health insurance companies and the IRS as regards three or more equal partners or "spice".

I support a more feasible method via improving the availability and affordability of individual health insurance, together with getting state and federal government out of the marriage business. Domestic partnerships of many kinds would be recognized, and the same benefits granted now to a more narrow definition of families would become available to all intentional families.

A plan along these lines has already been put forth by a group of activists, writers and academics in 2006, a group called Beyond Same-Sex Marriage

With federal and state government out of the marriage business, marriage would become a private matter in terms of getting the blessing of religious institutions and so forth. No one's existing marriage would be harmed, and no one's right to engage in marriage would be prevented.

Polyfolk might have to go to more trouble to designate who gets what financial, parental and inheritance rights, but I'd be willing to spend some money with a good lawyer if that's all it took to have good, effective legal protection, access to fair benefits and the ability to choose who and how many partners I want, while taking power to grant relationship legitimacy out of the hands of government.

Is an Alliance between Polyamorists and Patriarchal Polygamists Likely?

In the vein of politics making strange bedfellows, forming political alliances for specifically delineated, carefully considered purposes has been historically proven to have its benefits. There certainly exist several fairly strong rational arguments that can be made for teaming up with patriarchal polygamists ("PPs"). Regardless, alliance with PPs would surely provoke an outcry in much of the feminist, egalitarian-minded polyamory community. Huge differences in community values exist that are next to impossible to simply dismiss or ignore.

People are indeed passionate about violation of their community values. Rather than coming from the rational mind, these are very much matters of the heart. So it is that rational strategy and closely-held values come in conflict here.

The problem with an alliance with PPs is that their form of non-monogamy grossly violates what I'll refer to as the spirit of polyamory ("SOP") as highly valued within the poly community itself. Note that there are many people practicing polyamory who are not denizens of the poly community - in some cases because they don't share the social POV that at least in part underpins the SOP.

I know of no organization that is in the process of forming an alliance with PPs. As a practical matter, the poly community supports no organization sufficiently to have influence over what any does. If Woodhull Freedom Foundation or or LovingMore or World Polyamory Association want to ally themselves with PPs, with enough horsepower and sufficient strategy they can certainly do it. No one can stop them (though to be fair, LovingMore probably has the most at stake.)

Whomever contemplates this approach would be well advised to both plan carefully how to explain the political expedience of it to feminist polys who highly value egalitarianism - and there are many, many of those – as well as be prepared to come under considerable criticism as they likely go it alone. Inclusiveness being also a closely held poly community value, that argument may persuade some - it would be interesting to see if it succeeded.

I'm not usually a skeptic, but on this question for purely pragmatic reasons I just don't see polyamory community support for an alliance with PPs happening anytime soon. The squick factor is just too significant. Perhaps an appeal to self-identified polys who live outside the poly community would get more traction.